STS. PHILIP AND JAMES (2025)

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, says the Lord.
Philip, to have seen me is to have seen the Father. JN 14:6, 9

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-8

My Soul's Beloved,

Your glorious resurrection is the hinge on which we believe. If You had not risen from the dead, then You would be like all humans are. We live, we die, and we become dust and are forgotten, no matter what spectacular lives we may have led while we were alive. Despite all the great miracles You performed, despite Your authority over life and death, over the physical, the mental, the spiritual, and natural, if You died and were buried like the rest of humanity, Your Name would become the stuff of myths and legends. But this is not true. You did rise again on the third day after You were buried. There were many, many witnesses to this fact, beginning with Your Apostles, and disciples, and finally, as St. Paul testifies, You appeared to him.

Every other faith is founded on myths, legends, and ordinary people who have long since died. They await Your second coming and at Your command, they, like the rest of humanity, will rise again to be judged by You and receive their reward according to their deeds. 

The power of the Gospel comes not from the many miracles, Lord, but from the fact that You are who You said You are - the Eternal Word of God, the only beloved Son of the Father, the Lamb of God who was slain and who takes away the sins of the world. Who lived, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again gloriously on the third day. We long for Your coming again in glory, Beloved, our Bridegroom, who will come to claim His Bride, the Church, and to lead her to the Father, where the marriage of the Bridegroom and the Bride will be consummated, and we will feast at the wedding banquet eternally.

The gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you – believing anything else will not lead to anything.
Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared first to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve. Next he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died; then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles; and last of all he appeared to me too; it was as though I was born when no one expected it.

PSALM 18(19):2-5

Their word goes forth through all the earth.

The heavens proclaim the glory of God,
and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.
Day unto day takes up the story
and night unto night makes known the message.

No speech, no word, no voice is heard
yet their span extends through all the earth,
their words to the utmost bounds of the world.

Their word goes forth through all the earth.

JOHN 14:6-14

My Soul's Beloved,

To be a Catholic is the greatest gift that we have received, but just being Catholic in name will do us no good at all. We have to be Catholic in truth. What does it mean to be Catholic? It means that we have been baptized into Your Body, the Church, and every Catholic, as a member of Your Body, receives the life of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in fullness in the heart of the Catholic Church and in every Catholic. It is by the power of the Spirit of God that the Church possesses the fullness of beauty, truth, and goodness. It is here, in the Church that You founded with Peter as the Rock and You its Cornerstone, that Wisdom makes her home. 

As You said to Thomas in today's Gospel passage for the Church's reflection in the Liturgy, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.' Filled with the knowledge of the Truth of God and having received Life from the Holy Spirit we can make no progress to our heavenly home if we do not follow the Way which You not only pointed to us but being the Way itself by the powerful witness and testament of Your Life from the moment of Your incarnation, Your birth, Your life, Your death, Your resurrection, and glorious ascension to heaven. 

The lives of every great saint who has gone before us reveal to us that we can all be saints, provided we desire it as passionately as they did. They not only desired it Beloved, they disciplined their will to align with Yours. Unless we hunger and thirst for the Truth, O Lord, we will never fully expose ourselves to It and be transformed by it.

 All that we need for our salvation, You have revealed to us in You, Lord. Grant us the grace to embrace it and become a new creation, prepared to follow in Your footsteps all the Way from earth to heaven. 

Jesus said to Thomas:
‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
No one can come to the Father except through me.
If you know me, you know my Father too.

‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father,
so how can you say, “Let us see the Father”?
Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words I say to you I do not speak as from myself:
it is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work.

You must believe me when I say
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;
believe it on the evidence of this work, if for no other reason.
I tell you most solemnly,
whoever believes in me
will perform the same works as I do myself,
he will perform even greater works,
because I am going to the Father.
Whatever you ask for in my name I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask for anything in my name,
I will do it.’